The present invention relates to an aqueous-alcoholic composition for treating hair, which is free of cationic surfactants and contains a combination of at least one film-forming cationic, anionic and/or amphoteric polymer with an amphoteric surfactant, a C.sub.2 - to C.sub.4 -alcohol and an organic acid. It also relates to methods of using that composition.
The physical, chemical and morphological properties of hair are influenced negatively by many different kinds of actions. Thus the hair is severely stressed and damaged, by cosmetic treatments, such as repeated bleaching, permanent wave treatments and hair dyeing, and also frequent washing with de-oiling surfactants, by climatic influences such as moisture and temperature differences or the intensive action of sunlight and by mechanical treatment, such as brushing, combing and rubbing, especially in the vicinity of the hair tips, while the hair in the vicinity of the roots has a healthy undamaged structure. The greatly differing hair structure of the hair roots and the hair tips is a significant problem during the permanent wave treatment of hair. When the waving effectiveness of the permanent shaping composition for the hair is adapted to compensate for the worn and damaged hair tips, one generally obtains only an unsatisfactory permanent shaping of the hair at the hair roots. When one, in contrast, adjusts the effectiveness of the permanent shaping composition, for the undamaged hair at the hair roots, the hair at the worn hair tips can be damaged so very badly that curliness is significantly reduced or the individual hairs can even be broken.
During the permanent shaping of the hair performed with keratin-reducing shaping agents generally one first washes and then moistens the hair rubbed with a hand towel with a portion of a permanent shaping composition, then divides it into strands, winds these strands individually on permanent wave curlers and subsequently moistens the hair with the remaining portion of the permanent shaping composition. After finishing the permanent shaping process the hair is rinsed with water, then fixed oxidatively, subsequently removed from the curlers, rinsed with fresh water and, if necessary, after-treated with a treatment preparation.
This process has however several disadvantages. This sort of permanent shaping method can cause injury to the hands of the beauty shop personnel performing the treatment (e.g. allergies or other skin conditions), since the hands can come into contact with the permanent shaping composition for a total time amounting to about 20 minutes required for the curling or waving process. Moreover the above-described method is not very safe for the hair, since hair softening due to moistening of the hair with the hair shaping composition can very easily lead to an overstretching of the hair during the curling process on the curlers and, as a result of that, to hair breaking and hair falling out.
Moreover the hair is very strongly stressed after a hair shaping treatment so that an after-treatment with a hair care composition is necessary to again impart to the hair a natural touch and look.